The world knows about what is happening in the
Middle East. News spreads at mind-boggling speed. Politicians barely have
enough time to read the dispatches arriving hour after hour. Everyone is aware
of the importance of what is happening over there.

After 18 days of tough struggle, the Egyptian
people achieved an important objective: overthrowing the main United States
ally in the heart of the Arab nations. Mubarak was oppressing and pillaging his
own people, he was an enemy to the Palestinians and an accomplice of Israel,
the sixth nuclear power on the planet, associated with the war-mongering NATO
group.

February 14, 2011 -- The Bullet -- The events of the last few weeks are one of those historical moments
where the lessons of many decades can be telescoped into a few brief
moments and seemingly minor occurrences can take on immense
significance. The entry of millions of Egyptians onto the political
stage has graphically illuminated the real processes that underlie the
politics of the Middle East.

It has laid bare the longstanding
complicity of the US and other world powers with the worst possible
regimes, revealed the empty and hypocritical rhetoric of US
President Barack Obama and other leaders, exposed the craven
capitulation of all the Arab regimes, and demonstrated the real
alliances between these regimes, Israel and the USA. These are political
lessons that will long be remembered.

February 12, 2011 -- Jadaliyya -- Since February 11, and actually earlier,
middle-class activists have been urging Egyptians to suspend the
protests and return to work, in the name of patriotism, singing some of
the most ridiculous lullabies about "let's build new Egypt". "Let's work
harder than even before", ... In case you didn't know, actually
Egyptians are among the hardest working people around the globe already.

February 1, 2011 -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s fate is sealed, not even the
support of the United States will be able to save his government.

The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilisation. “From the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries of history are looking
down upon us”, Napoleon Bonaparte once said in a moment of exaltation
when the revolution brought him to this extraordinary crossroads of
civilisations.

After World War II, Egypt was under the brilliant governance of Abdel
Nasser, who together with Jawaharlal Nehru, heir of Mahatma Gandhi;
Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah; and Guniea's Ahmed Sekou Toure — African leaders who together with
Sukarno, then president of the recently liberated Indonesia — created
the Non-Aligned Movement of Countries and advanced the struggle for
independence in the former colonies.

January 29, 2011 -- Electronic Intifada -- We are in the middle of a
political earthquake in the Arab world and the ground has still not
stopped shaking. To make predictions when events are so fluid is risky,
but there is no doubt that the uprising in Egypt -- however it ends --
will have a dramatic impact across the region and within Palestine.

Above: young woman protester in Egypt. "The protests have been led by educated young people frustrated by
poverty and lack of political freedom."

By Tony Iltis

January 30, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- Having started with a fearless uprising for democracy and economic
justice that is sweeping the Arab world, 2011 is shaping up to be a
decisive year for the Middle East. By January 14, the first dictator had already been overthrown: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak looks set to follow.

Protests inspired by the Tunisian revolution have occurred in several
Arab countries, repeatedly in Yemen and Jordan. On January 28, the
Middle East’s most populous country, Egypt, was rocked by riots after
police tried brutally, but unsuccessfully, to end four days of protest
against the 30-year-old dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.

October 13, 2010 -- On a full-day drive through the Jordan Valley late last month, we
skirted the Earth’s oldest city and lowest inhabited point, 400
metres below sea level. For 10,000 years, people have lived along the
river that separates the present-day West Bank and Jordan.

Since 1967 the river has been augmented by Palestinian blood, sweat and
tears, ending in the Dead Sea, from which no water flows; it only
evaporates. Conditions degenerated during Israel’s land-grab, when from
a peak of more than 300,000 people living on the west side of the river,
displacements shoved Palestinian refugees across into Jordan and other
parts of the West Bank. The valley has fewer than 60,000 Palestinians
today.

By the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)

Occupied Ramallah, September 30, 2010 -- PACBI welcomes the decision[1] on September 29, 2010, by the Senate of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) "not
to continue a long-standing relationship with Ben Gurion University
(BGU) in Israel in its present form" and to set conditions "for the
relationship to continue". The fact that the UJ Senate set an ultimatum[2] of six months for BGU to end its complicity with the occupation army
and to end policies of racial discrimination against Palestinians is a
truly significant departure from the business-as-usual attitude that had
governed agreements between the two institutions until recently.

August
14, 2010 -- On July 21 the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth published an interview with Donald Perera, Sri
Lanka’s ambassador to Israel.

Perera,
the former Sri Lankan Air Force commander and Chief of Defence Staff, thanked
Israel profusely for its support in the fight against the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE), saying: "For years Israel has aided our war on terror
through the exchange of information and the sale of military technology and
equipment... Our air force fleet includes 17 Kfir warplanes, and we also have
Dabur patrol boats. Our pilots were trained in Israel, and we have received
billions of dollars in aid over the past few years. This is why I asked to be
assigned to Israel -- a country I consider a partner in the war against terror."

South African workers support boycotts and sanctions against Israel's apartheid state.

By Art Young

August 6, 2010 -- Socialist Voice -- When Israeli commandos attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in
international waters on May 31, 2010, murdered nine humanitarian aid workers
and seized the cargo of badly needed supplies for Gaza, they touched off
an international storm of outrage that continues to this day. The
widespread anger has galvanised the international movement in solidarity
with the Palestinian people, drawing in new forces and producing new
initiatives.

Following the attack on the flotilla, Palestinian civil society
issued an appeal to progressive forces around the world to redouble
their solidarity efforts and to strengthen the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS) against Israel. On June 7 the major Palestinian
trade union federations appealed to dock workers to refuse to handle
Israeli cargo. They said:

Palestinians
from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip queue at a
checkpoint in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya as they attempt to reach
their jobs in Israel. Photo by Khaleel Reash/MaanImages.

By Sarah Irving

July 23, 2010 -- The Electronic Intifada -- Every June, the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) releases its Annual Survey of
Violations of Trade Union Rights. According to a press release that
accompanied the 2010 publication (which reports on events in 2009), "the
Middle East remains among the regions of the world where union rights
are least protected". The report describes repression meted out to
Palestinian workers and trade unionists by both the Israeli authorities
and the Palestinian factions. But the ITUC's omissions and brevity both
disguise the complexity of life for Palestinian workers, and reveal some
of the international union confederation's own biases.

June 25, 2010 -- South Africa's soccer-loving critics have long predicted the problems now growing worse here
because of its World Cup hosting duties:

loss of large chunks of government’s sovereignty to the world soccer
body FIFA;

rapidly worsening income inequality;

future economic calamities as debt payments come due;

dramatic increases in greenhouse gas emissions (more than twice
Germany’s in 2006); and

humiliation and despondency as the country’s soccer team Bafana Bafana
(ranked #90 going into the games) became the first host to expire before
the competition’s second round.

Soon, it seems, we may also add to this list a problem that terrifies
progressives here and everywhere: another dose of xenophobia from both
state and society.

The crucial question in coming weeks is whether, instead of offering some
kind of resistance from below, as exemplified by the Durban Social Forum
network’s 1000-strong rally against FIFA on June 16 at City Hall, Durban, will
society’s sore losers adopt right-wing populist sentiments, and frame
the foreigner?

June 25, 2010
-- As Israel stands increasingly isolated following its manufactured confrontation
on May 31, 2010, with the peace flotilla in which nine Turkish activists on the
Mavi Marmara were murdered, now is
the time to increase the pressure on Israel to lift the siege of Gaza.

Israel’s
criminal blockade of Gaza is aimed to collectively punish 1.5 million Gazans
for their choice of government.

The attack on
the flotilla was aimed at demoralising Palestinians and their supporters. But,
as we've seen from the global protests – particularly in Turkey and the Arab
world – it has backfired on the Netanyahu government. Turkey, once a close
political and military ally, has now distanced itself from Israel and supports
attempts to break the Gaza blockade.

June 20, 2010 -- ANSWER
-- In a historic action and unprecedented action today, more 800 worker
and community activists blocked the gates of the Oakland docks in the
early morning hours, prompting longshore workers to refuse to cross the
picketlines where they were scheduled to unload an Israeli ship.

Protest in solidarity with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the people of Palestine, outside the US embassy, Jakarta, Indonesia, on June 7, 2010. Organised by the Working People's Association (Perhimpunan Rakyat Pekerja). Made with Slideshow Embed Tool.

Palestinian trade union movement calls on international dockworkers' unions to block loading/offloading Israeli ships until
Israel complies fully with international law and ends its illegal siege
of Gaza

June 7, 2010 -- The Palestinian trade union movement, as a key constituent
member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee
(BNC) calls on dockworkers' unions worldwide to block Israeli maritime
trade in response to Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers
and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla, until Israel complies with
international law and ends its illegal blockade of Gaza.